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Project Overview

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Occasionally, dog owners need assistance caring for and walking their pets. There's a gap in the market where dog owners wanting to connect with dog walkers while trusting their furry bestfriends for a few hours to a few nights.

THE RESULT

By identifying the persona through interviews and research, I developed a solution that is simple to use and visually appealing. It focuses more on freeing up the time of dog owners by reversing the selection process. Normally, when searching for the right walker, they will spend hours selecting from dozens of candidates.

With Bark, dog owners simply post a job and wait for applicants to come in while staying confident that once the job starts, their dogs will be in good hands.

MY ROLE

This gave me a chance to wear multiple hats from conducting interviews, facilitating a little affinity mapping workshop, building wireframes (FigJam), prototyping (Figma), user testing, all the way to creating the design system + finished UI. Basically my first as a Product Designer.

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1. Empathise

INTERVIEW

The method I used was qualitative, so I set up three interviews via video call. NNGroup recommends five, but the other two failed to respond. It was a casual interview after dinner and I asked for permission to audio record our conversation for note-taking purposes especially for their direct quotes.

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2. Define

AFFINITY MAPPING

This is an important step in the design process which extracts insights and group notes to form a common theme. Through this I was able to understand the users needs, define product requirements, and plan future product features.

Goals & Ambitions

• Find a dog walker that can be trusted.

• Book a recurring dog walking service.

• Meet & greet with the dog walker prior to job confirmation.

• Find a local dog walker that knows the area.

Pain Points / Frustrations

• Complete service from dog walking, pet sitting, training down to grooming.

• Easy booking process. A user said "I wish the calendar was as easy as Airbnb".

• "It takes too much time to find the right one."

• Reliable dog walkers.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Most of the dog walking apps weren't available in Australia at the time I started the project so taking the screenshots from the Apple Store and noting their reviews were enough to do the analysis. I was able to understand the competitor's strengths and weaknesses and finding a gap in the market.

HOW MIGHT WE...

Help a dog owner establish trust with a potential walker?

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3. Ideate

SKETCHES

My initial strategy for wireframing was to do Crazy 8s, which is an exercise where I try to come up with eight ideas in eight minutes. Eventually, I ran out of time and had to settle for seven ideas.

Wireframes usually represents the early concept of the product, and so styling, colour, and graphics may not be as extensive as they would be in a fully developed product. Wireframes provide a clear outline of the page structure, layout, information architecture, user flow, functionality, and intended behaviour.

USER FLOW

By mapping out a user flow for this project, it helped me identify which parts of the app I need to focus on and iron out their journey to have less friction as possible. With a limited timeframe, I focused on the three main user flows: adding pet details, finding a dog walker, and confirming a job.

As I was working on the user flow it was difficult for me to remember the styles of each shapes so I created a base design for FigJam and shared it in Figma Community. So far it has been used by 403 people since mid of April 2023.

MOODBOARD & STYLE TILE

A style tile is usually used to express the visual ideas graphically when words are not enough. But for me I use this method to quickly generate ideas on the colour palette combination.

WIREFRAMES: EVOLUTION OF DESIGN

DESIGN SYSTEM

A design system enhances the customer experience by ensuring consistency, familiarity, and accessibility at all points of contact. This is one of the process I enjoy creating the most. During this stage I constantly check that the content passes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

USER INTERFACE DESIGN

I'm very happy with the outcome of the wireframing and user testing that lead me to this final design. Aside from the fresh yellow colour, it has soft shapes to embody the feeling of playfulness while showing the important factors that the user needs such as ratings, credentials and reviews. My favourite part is the creative approach to star ratings by using paw prints.

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4. Prototype

Interacting with the design on an actual phone is one of the best way to test if the design and transition works between screens. By following Apple's HIG, the buttons were easily tappable and text was readable.

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5. Test

In this iterative process I created a working prototype for the parts that needed testing, mainly creating a job post for dog walking and secondly reviewing the applicants according to their price and accepting the offer. User tests serve to determine whether there are usability issues with the navigation and the core features of the app, and to test assumptions I may have about it. Finding testers was difficult unless you give them a reward in a form of cash voucher which I don't have a budget for, so I only tested two participants. After tweaking the design from the first feedback, I run it again with the second participant and everything was smooth. 🎉

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6. Implement

If you read all the way here and interested in materialising this vision or start a new project, feel free to reach out and ask questions.

Cheers,

Bambi Corro III

LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube

Make someone smile today or tell them you love them.

You can check my user flow kit for FigJam here at Figma Community